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" I'm a huge fan of writing for people rather than writing and then trying to wedge people in. I'd love to know who the people are before I can write for them. For me, it's a much more organic way to create characters. "

Kenya Barris

Love

Writing

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" I will be so happy when 'diversity' is not a word. "

" For me, Shonda Rhimes is an amazing person that I look up to. She empowered a lot of her writers to go on and do other things while, at the same time, she made sure she kept her stamp on those things and grew her business. "

Kenya Barris

Business

Look

" We should be aware and constantly having conversations about the world because that's how you change it from the bigger standpoint rather than acutely trying to change things. "

" I still believe a little bit that changing gender roles have hurt relationships. "

" My kids did not know that Obama was the first black president. I felt like I needed to tell them because I felt like, 'How could you not know that?' But for the ones who didn't know, he was basically the only president they knew. "

" I love Donald Glover. "

" Laurence Fishburne - he's a great actor, but he dances and sings, too? He can just do everything. "

" Writers' rooms are terrifying. You take someone whose never done this before, and this is their life's dream that is about to happen or not about to happen - that is an amazing amount of pressure to have. "

" I wanted to be a doctor, because I grew up on 'Cosby.' "

" And I feel like, as a black man within black culture, I know very well firsthand - as do my parents and my grandparents and great-grandparents - we're used to things not going our way. "

" 'A Different World,' for me, was in a lot of ways responsible for me going to college. I wanted to go to a black college, and I wanted to get out of Los Angeles. It's just a natural part of all of our journeys, that idea of leaving home. "

Kenya Barris

Black

World

" I dug deep, and I found that there were people who voted for Obama and then voted for Trump - because they saw what they believed was going to be hope and change, and under Obama, their particular lives did not change. "

" I would say any creative person has that: you can't just force a topic. Whether you're a painter, you want to do a cartoon. Anything. Something may come up that's not your style or suited to what you are working on at the moment. So you file it away and hopefully find a place for it. "

" You can have good times with anyone, but it's really different and much more interesting when you look at how you get through the bad times with someone. "

" Most importantly, I want my kids to be happy. You're only as happy as your saddest kid. "

" When you're in the middle of it, when you're a kid growing up, you don't think, 'This is my first heartbreak.' You just think, 'My heart is broken.' But then as a parent, you look back, and you see your child go through his or her first heartbreak, and you're realizing, 'Oh my God, this is her first heartbreak.' "

" As much as we want to say racism is dead, it's still rearing its ugly head constantly. "

" There's never really been a true apology for slavery. "

" I want to start really developing more on the film side. "

Kenya Barris

Film

Want

" I love Meryl Streep. "

" I think that's the key to any artistic endeavor: You want it to feel fresh and not have people look at it like it's re-creation of something else unless it's done in a really strong way. "

" I hear people say, 'I'm not a role model' all the time, and it's like, 'Well, of course you're not!' It doesn't mean that people aren't going to look at you as one, though. "

" Whenever you put a family together, they may share some points of views and morals, but there are going to be differences. "

" I hear a creak in my house, and I'm calling the police immediately, but at the same time, I do know that when I call them, I'm going to make sure to say, 'I'm a black guy, and this is my house.' "

" My wife is a doctor, and we had a decent life financially. My kids were going to nice schools and had nannies. We weren't rich, but we were better off than I was growing up. And I looked around, and I was like, 'Who are these people?' It was the opposite of what I remembered growing up. "

" Black, white, rich, poor - we galvanize through the hard times. We really see it happen in relationships. In the best and worst of those moments, you come together, and you look for your tribe. "

" Comedy used to be a vehicle for change. Now, comedy has gotten to this quirky, nonsensical place, which I enjoy. But I do think there is room for discussion-based humor. We can tell those stories in a way that feels edifying. "

" If Adam Sandler does a bad movie, he doesn't bring down the whole white race. But if Tyler Perry does, it's like, 'See what you guys do?' and that type of thing. "

" I really want to do what 'Veep' did. 'Veep,' in a very comical way, gave us a look inside the political machine, but I want to do it for the average American family. "

" I wanted to do a show about a family that is absolutely black. Because as Du Bois has shown, we do have to live a double consciousness every day in the world. We have to walk our path and walk the mainstream path, and there's never really been a show that's talked about what that's like. "